Report for IEEE VR 2011 Singapore by Kasun Karunanayaka
The conference was held at the SUNTEC Convention center, Singapore from March 19 and its organized by the IEEE Computer Society. !9th and 20th march was allocated for the 3D UI and ISVRI conferences and 21st to 23rd march was allocated for the IEEE Virtual Reality conference. I have attended the sessions of all three conferences. IEEE 3D UI ''' The IEEE Symposium on 3D User Interfaces 2011 is the sixth international symposiums focused on the topic of 3D User Interfaces and provides an opportunity for industrial and academic researchers to exchange ideas about the state of art 3DUI research. '''IEEE ISVRI International Symposium on VR innovation 2011 is the first international symposium focused on really innovative (exciting, stimulating) concepts, systems (hardware/software), or applications of virtual reality, even if they have not reached the stage to conduct well-defined user studies. IEEE VR' IEEE Virtual Reality is one of the most prestigious international conferences and exhibitions on virtual reality. The conference focuses recent research and development in the fields of virtual environments, augmented reality, 3D user interface, etc. Researchers and practitioners actively working in VR area will get together to discuss the recent research/technology developments and trends. We invite you to submit your works, show your products, and join for the fascinating week of presentations, exhibits, workshops, and special events. Some proceedings I have interested : “Mobile Augmented Reality at the Hollywood Walk of Fame” introduces techniques to facilitate large-scale Augmented Reality (AR) experiences in unprepared outdoor environments. We develop a shape-based object detection framework that works with limited texture and can robustly handle extreme illumination and occlusion issues. “A Soft Hand Model for Physically-based Manipulation of Virtual Objects” developed a new hand model for increasing the robustness of finger-based manipulations of virtual objects. Each phalanx of our hand model consists of a number of deformable soft bodies, which dynamically adapt to the shape of grasped objects based on the applied forces. Stronger forces directly result in larger contact areas, which increase the friction bet ween hand and object as would occur in reality. “Olfactory Feedback System to Improve the Concentration Level Based on Biological Information” tries to increase the effects of odors by controlling the o dor emissions. They have developed an olfactory feedback system to maintain user’s concentration effectively based on biol ogical information. The system presumes the level of user’s concentration based on an electrocardiogram analysis. The analysis is carried out using variance of R-R intervals and frequency spectra. According to the presumed concentration level, the system presents an odor with an awakening effect to maintain user’s concentration. “Comparing Steering-Based Travel Techniques for Search Tasks in a CAVE” presents a novel bimanual body-directed travel technique, PenguFly (PF), and compare it with two standard travel-by-pointing techniques by conducting a between-subject experiment in a CAVE. In PF, the positions of the user’s head and hand s are projected onto the ground, and travel direction and speed are computed based on direction and magnitude of the vector from the midpoint of the projected hand positions to the projected head position. Panel Discussions: I have attained for the panel discussion host by Prof.Mark Billingous. It was about how to develop a successful career in virtual reality. One basic thing he was shared with fro graduate students is to become a successful graduate student we should collaborate with others who has expertise in different fields, we should take sufficient time to think of the problems, practice writing, work on important things, go where your heart leads. After him there are several other speakers were addressed the audience and share the experience and how their careers are build with the experience in Virtual Reality. Project Demonstrations: There was a nice demo of interactive learning tool was presented by Prof.Henery Duh’s group. They have used 1mm size small markers and use IPhone to detect them and augment virtual objects in the display. The application was a learning tool which shows the insects, anatomy and other details of cabbage leaf. Random dot markers was a project which uses printed black dots in a piece of paper as markers. According to the patterns forms by the dots the different markers are identified by the system. This work is quite similar to the feature points we have identified using the SURF algorithms in the MINDEF project. Altered Reality : Augmented and diminishing reality in realtime was another interesting project which demonstrated in the conference where used a box as a marker , then augments an object on top of it and changes the shape of the augmented object in real time. The most interesting demo for me was providing the taste sensations using the smell and augmented biscuits. The project was carried out by one of the Japanese university and they used traditional “Marie” biscuits but using the different smells of strawberry ,chocolate, lemon king of flavors and augmenting images they were able to provide nearly same sensation while we are eating “Marie” biscuits. Closing of the conference Closing speech is done by Prof. Royehi Nakatzu in the evening of the 23rd March. Before that award ceremony was took place. Several awards have been awarded for the best paper in each categories. After that Prof.Nakatzu has officially closed the conference. I have helped other student volunteers to pack things for shipping the items back.